10 reasons why the internet is no substitute for a library

Mark W Herring, Wintrhop University

article orriganny appeared in American Libtraries, 2001, p.76-78, modified slightly
January 2010.

1. Not Everything Is on the Internet

With over one billion Web pages you couldnt tell it by looking.
Nevertheless, very few substantive materials are on the Internet for free.
For example, only about 8% of all journals are on the Web, and an even
smaller fraction of books are there. Both are costly! If you want the
Journal of Biochemistry, Physics Today, Journal of American History,youll
pay, and to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
2. The Needle (Your Search) in the Haystack (the Web)
The Internet is like a vast uncataloged library. Whether youre using
Hotbot, Lycos, Dogpile, Infoseek, or any one of a dozen other search or
metasearch engines, youre not searching the entire Web. Sites often
promise to search everything but they cant deliver. Moreover, what they
do search is not updated daily, weekly, or even monthly, regardless of
whats advertised. If a librarian told you, Here are 10 articles on Native
Americans. We have 40 others but were not going to let you see them,
not now, not yet, not until youve tried another search in another library,
youd throw a fit. The Internet does this routinely and no one seems to
mind.
3. Quality Control Doesnt Exist
Yes, we need the Internet, but in addition to all the scientific, medical, and
historical information (when accurate), there is also a cesspool of waste.
When young people arent getting their sex education off XXX-rated sites,
theyre learning politics from the Freeman Web page, or race relations
from Klan sites. There is no quality control on the Web, and there isnt
likely to be any. Unlike libraries where vanity press publications are rarely,
if ever, collected, vanity is often what drives the Internet. Any fool can put
up anything on the Web, and, to my accounting, all have.
4. What You Dont Know Really Does Hurt You
The great boon to libraries has been the digitization of journals. But fulltext sites, while grand, arent always full. What you dont know can hurt
you:
1. articles on these sites are often missing, among other things, footnotes;

2. tables, graphs, and formulae do not often show up in a readable fashion

(especially when printed); and
3. journal titles in a digitized package change regularly, often without
warning.
A library may begin with X number of journals in September and end with
Y number in May. Trouble is, those titles arent the same from September
to May. Although the library may have paid $100,000 for the access, its
rarely notified of any changes. I would not trade access to digitized
journals for anything in the world, but their use must be a judicious,
planned, and measured one, not full, total, and exclusive reliance.
5. States Can Now Buy One Book and Distribute to Every

Library on the WebNOT!

Yes, and we could have one national high school, a national university,
and a small cadre of faculty teaching everybody over streaming video.
Lets take this one step further and have only digitized sports teams for
real savings! (Okay, I know, Ive insulted the national religion.) Since 1970
about 50,000 academic titles have been published every year. Of these
1.5 million titles, fewer than a couple thousand are available. What is on
the Net are about 20,000 titles published before 1925. Why? No copyright
restrictions that cause prices to soar to two or three times their printed
costs. Finally, vendors delivering e-books allow only one digitized copy per
library. If you check out an e-book over the Web, I cant have it until you
return it. Go figure, as they say. And if youre late getting the book back,
there is no dog-ate-my-homework argument. Its charged to your credit
card automatically.
6. Hey, Bud, You Forgot about E-book Readers
Most of us have forgotten what we said about microfilm (It would shrink
libraries to shoebox size), or when educational television was invented
(Well need fewer teachers in the future). Try reading an e-book reader
for more than a half-hour. Headaches and eyestrain are the best results.
Besides, if what youre reading is more than two pages long, what do you
do? Print it. Wheres a tree hugger when you really need one? Moreover,
the cost of readers runs from $200 to $2,000, the cheaper ones being
harder on the eyes. Will this change? Doubtless, but right now theres no
market forces making it change. Will it change in less than 75 years?
Unlikely!
7. Arent There Library-less Universities Now?
No. The newest state university in California at Monterey opened without a
library building a few years ago. For the last two years, theyve been

buying books by the tens of thousands becausesurprise, surprisethey

couldnt find what they needed on the Internet. California Polytechnic
State University, home of the worlds highest concentration of engineers
and computer geeks, explored the possibility of a virtual (fully electronic)
library for two years. Their solution was a $42-million traditional library
with, of course, a strong electronic component. In other words, a fully
virtualized library just cant be done. Not yet, not now, not in our lifetimes.
8. But a Virtual State Library Would Do It, Right?
Do what, bankrupt the state? Yes, it would. The cost of having everything
digitized is incredibly high, costing tens of millions of dollars just in
copyright releases. And this buys only one virtual library at one university.
Questia Media, the biggest such outfit, just spent $125 million digitizing
50,000 books released (but not to libraries!) in January. At this rate, to
virtualize a medium-sized library of 400,000 volumes would cost a mere
$1,000,000,000! Then you need to make sure students have equitable
access everywhere they need it, when they need it. Finally, what do you
do with rare and valuable primary sources once they are digitized? Take
them to the dump? And you must hope the power never, ever goes out.
Sure, students could still read by candlelight, but what would they be
reading?
9. The Internet: A Mile Wide, an Inch (or Less) Deep
Looking into the abyss of the Internet is like vertigo over a void. But the
void has to do not only with whats there, but also with what isnt. Not
much on the Internet is more than 15 years old. Vendors offering
magazine access routinely add a new year while dropping an earlier one.
Access to older material is very expensive. Itll be useful, in coming years,
for students to know (and have access to) more than just the scholarly
materials written in the last 10 to15 years.
10. The Internet Is Ubiquitous but Books Are Portable
In a recent survey of those who buy electronic books, more than 80% said
they like buying paper books over the Internet, not reading them on the
Web. We have nearly 1,000 years of reading print in our bloodstream and
thats not likely to change in the next 75. Granted, there will be changes
in the delivery of electronic materials now, and those changes, most of
them anyway, will be hugely beneficial. But humankind, being what it is,
will always want to curl up with a good booknot a laptopat least for
the foreseeable future.
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The Web is great; but its a woefully poor substitute for a full-service
library. It is mad idolatry to make it more than a tool. Libraries are icons of
our cultural intellect, totems to the totality of knowledge. If we make them
obsolete, weve signed the death warrant to our collective national
conscience, not to mention sentencing whats left of our culture to the
waste bin of history. No one knows better than librarians just how much it
costs to run a library. Were always looking for ways to trim expenses
while not contracting service. The Internet is marvelous, but to claim, as
some now do, that its making libraries obsolete is as silly as saying shoes
have made feet unnecessary.

Library VS Internet - ten good

reasons to use the library
Joyce B. Radclif (Serials Librarian)
site web
https://www.tnstate.edu/library/publicservices/library_vs_intern
et.aspx
The Internet is not a substitute for the library, but a
search tool to be used in addition to traditional sources
in the library.
1. Everything Is Not On the Internet The Internet consists
of a small percentage of whats published. Search engines such
as Google, AltaVista, and Yahoo access are limited. ALA reports
that only 8% of all journals and even fewer books are on the
Internet. The most reliable scholarly information is available in
books and journals. Preliminary steps to find the appropriate
search terms should start with print indexes and subject
headings volumes.
2. The Internet Is Not Organized
There is not a system that catalogs and organizes all resources
on the Internet. A search on the Internet is similar to searching

an unclassified catalog. When you use any of the search

engines, youre searching only part of the Internet. Searches
are not always relevant to your topic and can cause a lot of
wasted time, frustration and confusion
3. The Internet Doesnt Have Quality Control
Quality control isnt easy to achieve on the Internet. Open
Source information on the Internet is quite common and easy to
get misinformed information. Anyone with access to the
Internet can publish a Website.
4. Sources on the Internet are Harder to Identify
Information on the WWW is hard to tell whos telling you what
and where is the location of the information. When you use
information in your paper from the Internet, its important to
print it out and cite your sources. Information taken from the
Web can change overnight. Information taken from the library
or databases in the library gives the exact location. One must
give full documentation when using information from a site.
See the Academic Integrity Statement under Academic and
Classroom Conduct for Tennessee State Universitys response
to plagiarism and academic dishonesty.
To Cite the Internet:

Authors name (if known)

Full title of document in quotation marks
Title of complete work if applicable (in italics)
Date of publication of last revision (if available).
Full URL address (http) enclosed within angle brackets
Date of visit in parenthesis

Follow the guidelines in the following texts kept in reference in

Brown Daniels and Avon Williams Libraries.
The Chicago manual of style. Ref. Z253 .U69 2003
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.
BF76.7 .P83 2001

MLA handbook for writers of research papers. Ref. LB2369. C53

2003.
See Online Reference Resources for Research
http://www.tnstate.edu/interior.asp?mid=1028&ptid=1
5. Library Online Resources are Available 24/7
Online databases can be accessed 24 hours a day 7 days a
week from the librarys webpage. These databases are in the
librarys collection and can be accessed on campus and
remotely with your University ID via the Internet. This is not to
be confused with searching the Internet.
Complete List of Online Print and Print Journals
http://fj8cm8pf4g.search.serialssolutions.com
6. Tuition and Fees Pay for Library Use
Library resources are paid for with your tuition and fees, so take
advantage of it. Libraries provide free access to scholarly
books, journals, newspapers, encyclopedias, and other print
reference sources. A lot of information on the Internet is FREE,
except scholarly materials. A paid subscription is required to
access.
7. Trained Professionals Available For Assistance
Knowledgeable and friendly librarians are available to assist
with locating information in person, chat, e-mail or telephone.
Request assistance at the beginning of your research and spare
valuable time spent on the Internet.
8. E-books are Available
E-books are full-text and searchable. Text can be searched
automatically, and cross-referenced using hyperlinks.
Dictionaries, reference works, and some textbooks, benefit from
search and cross-reference capabilities. Content is available
24/7. TSUs Webpage provide e-books at:

http://www.tnstate.edu/library/milcat/ebooks.htm
9. The Internet Has Fewer Archival Materials
The library has older materials than the Internet. Digitalization
that goes back more than 10-15 years can be difficult to locate
on the Internet. The Internet provides more timely information,
and is constantly updated.
10. Does Library-less Universities Work
A virtual library cannot replace the traditional library. To
California libraries (Monterey and California Polytechnic
University) attempted this method, only to find out first hand
that it cant work. They found out that everything is not on the
Internet.

Adapted from Mark Herrings 10 Reasons Why the Internet is No

Substitute for a Library , American Libraries, April 2001, p.7678.